A Big Enough Home

For the past fifteen years, I have lived as a spiritual vagabond.

I grew up within the tight confines of the Plymouth Brethren. The exclusive, "Closed Brethren," not Garrison Keillor's relatively looser "Open Brethren."

During my years at Drew University I took a few steps outside the Brethren confines with friends from Drew's chapter of Intervarsity Christian Fellowship. I visited a charismatic church called the Vineyard, the Methodist congregation adjacent to the campus, and the Presbyterian church that sponsored our IVCF staff worker.

I finally decided on the Presbyterian church, mostly because I liked the pastor's preaching style. I attended new members' classes faithfully, signed the membership book, and was welcomed into membership by the congregation. The next Sunday the pastor announced that he had accepted a position in another state, and would soon be leaving!

I stayed with the Presbies nonetheless, and when seminary seemed the next logical choice, I chose Princeton Theological Seminary. Some of the women at Drew's theological school made disparaging comments about my choice, but I was not enough of a feminist yet to appreciate their wisdom.

I arrived at Princeton with most of my fundamentalism intact, and graduated three years later with very little of it left. Had Princeton been any more progressive, I doubt I would have survived.

Six months after graduation, I received a call to be the associate pastor of a Presbyterian church in northwest Ohio. Another life-changing event. In my four years there, I gained eight years of experience.

Near the end of my time at the church in Ohio, the speed of my left-ward trajectory began to escalate even more dramatically, and I found myself in a state of semi-self-imposed exile from the church.

That extended period of exile changed me so much that even if the Presbyterian Church (USA) were to do an about-face and decide to welcome me with open arms, I would no longer accept its invitation.

I flirted with the United Church of Christ, but found that even that relative freedom felt too much like a cage.

These days I am attending the Anchorage Unitarian Universalist Fellowship. Within the UUA, I hope, I will be free to travel as far and wide as imagination and conscience take me, without abandoning my responsibility and commitment to my adopted home.